


Chihuahuas VS. Pit Bulls

by WinterWhinery



Category: AU - Fandom, Hunter Hayes (Musician), Hunter Hayes - Fandom
Genre: Best Friends, Bully, Childhood Friends, Fighting, Friendship, Gen, Rescue, Underdog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 07:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11962845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterWhinery/pseuds/WinterWhinery
Summary: James hit Hunter once, and only once, in the entire course of their friendship.





	Chihuahuas VS. Pit Bulls

**Author's Note:**

> I'll qualify this as an AU because I can't for the life of me imagine this ever happening with Hunt in real life.

The second most memorable thing about the day James met Hunter was that it was also the first time he had ever been punched in the face.  
He was nine years old, and while walking to school, James spotted a bigger kid pushing around two smaller kids. His little brother and sister stopped to watch. James tried to get them going. He was going to be late- why his mother allowed them to walk on the first day, he didn't know, but it was proving to be a mistake.  
His sister, wide-eyed and staring, pointed at where a boy, who was hardly bigger than she was, struggled with a kid almost twice his size while a girl from James' class watched, crying.   
"Why?" His sister asked.  
James didn't know. "Bigger kids do that sometimes," He offered, and tugged on her hand. "C'mon, before it's us."  
"Can't you help him?" This from his brother, who thought that because James could monkey his way to steal chocolate from the top shelf in the kitchen, he could do anything.  
The bigger kid now sat on the smaller boy's chest, and started pushing his head into the concrete. The kid's face was bleeding and his eyes were glazed, but he wasn't crying. His little arms were still swinging up at the bigger kid, hands curled into small fists that pounded at the bully's chest.  
The last thing James wanted was to get involved. He'd fallen down on the sidewalk before, jumping out of his apartment's window because he thought he could fly. He'd cracked a tooth and broke his wrist. It hurt. The last thing he wanted was to get beat up on purpose.  
But he looked at his brother and sister, at their total faith in their big brother's abilities, and found himself thinking about what he would do if it was one of them.  
Before he knew it, he was across the street and diving on top of the big bully with his eyes closed so he didn't have to see his own beatdown coming. He lashed out blindly in the bully's general direction. He felt his own small knuckles come away bloody.  
The bigger kid socked him right in the eye, threw him on the ground and gave him one good kick before he ran away, deciding- James thought- that five kids was more trouble than two.  
The breath came back into James's body before the smaller kid recovered his, so he helped him up- squirming in discomfort when the kid leaned on him, red-faced and gasping.  
"What were you doing?" James asked him, when the kid finally let go of him to brace himself on the nearest wall.  
"He was trying to take Liz's lunch," the kid gasped, clutching his skinny chest like his heart would burst if he let go. "I gave him mine, but he still wouldn't leave her alone."  
James looked at the kid, and couldn't believe that someone would ever give away food without a beating first, let alone fight so hard for someone else's that he takes the beating anyway. He cast a look at the girl named Liz, who was holding her lunch like a bomb that might go off at any second. "Your brother?" he asked.  
She shook her head. "I never talked to him before."  
James looked back at the kid. "Serious?"  
He nodded. His breathing was starting to calm, but his face was starting to go from red to bruised, and there was blood dripping from a cut on his head. James wiped at it with his sleeve.   
"I'm James," he said.  
"Hunter," the kid answered.  
When they got to school, James found out that Hunter was actually his own age, and they would be in the same class. He found that out when he got assigned to look after him when Hunter insisted he didn't need to go home.  
James guessed he got the job because-bruised and bloody and holding onto to each other so Hunter doesn't fall over- they look like friends.  
James gave him half of his own lunch.  
II.   
James poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he positioned the container of ice over the plastic bag, concentrating hard so he didn't miss the opening. He missed the opening twice, and he had to chase the cubes around the kitchen floor before managing to scoop them up in a towel. He held the mass to Hunter's fat, bleeding lip.  
"What happened this time?" he asked. He didn't know why he bothered. The answer was nearly always the same: Chuck Gardner picking on some girl. That'd been the answer since they were nine. James didn't know if it was girls or Chuck that made Hunter forget every time that he was barely the size of an eleven-year-old even at fourteen. Or that the whole four times he'd won a fight with Chuck were all when James was there to step in and finish it.  
Predictably, Hunter said, "Chuck grabbed Chloe Miller's--" He couldn't seem to find a word he was comfortable saying, so he mimed a breast instead, his face flushing with heat all the way to his neck.  
James pressed the inside of his wrist against his forehead with a sigh.   
"And it never makes a difference to you that he's bigger than you?" He asked. "You know he's bigger than you, right? He doesn't, say, look smaller than he is with your glasses off?" Hunter's glasses were broken by Chuck in the first week of school that year, and another pair hadn't managed to materialize.   
"No, I know he's bigger," Hunter says. "That doesn't make it okay to walk on by."  
And that's Hunter all over, James thinks, with exasperated fondness.   
"Do you think you could maybe get me first before you jump in next time?" James asked.  
Hunter did his best to smile at him around the towel. Smiling must've hurt, though, because he winced. "You were too far away," Hunter said.  
James shook his head. "So I'm just going to have to watch you all the time. I see how it is."  
"I don't have to be watched all the time," Hunter said, frowning. Somewhere up there with Hunter's notions of chivalry was his sense of pride, irked by the idea of his best friend being his babysitter. Sometimes, James would prod him on this, tease Hunter until he actually got mad. He learned that all that accomplished was making Hunter avoid him for a few days, resulting in more fights without any help.  
He made a joke of it instead. "No, just any time Chuck's on the same block as a girl."  
Hunter smiled again, paying no mind to how much it hurt. "Maybe someone should be watching him."  
James laughed. "Maybe."  
(Chuck got cancer and moved to a bigger town a year later. James's mother slapped him for saying he's thankful, and then God got his licks in, too: new big blockheads sprung up jockeying for position of Bully-In-Chief.)  
III.   
James hit Hunter once, and only once, in the entire course of their friendship.  
On a day so hot, it felt like you could bake cookies on the pavement, Hunter got into another brawl for the honor of a girl he barely knew, a girl he only barely talked to afterwards because for reasons beyond James's understanding, Hunter didn't seem to actually be in it for the girls. He didn't want their admiration of his bravery and honor, despite his obvious disadvantages. He wanted the bravery and honor itself. To be the kind of person who would do things to try and turn the tide in an unfair fight, just because somebody should. Maybe it was his way of dealing with the fact that he was small and non-athletic, of trying to find something in himself that's bold and strong. Maybe it was because he was particularly sensitive to the agonies of the persecuted. James never asked.  
What he did know was that, after he'd managed to punch out three guys that Hunter stupidly took on at once, years of frustration get the better of him. He let fly his fist and gave Hunter a good one, knocking him down to the ground in one hit.  
Hunter stared up at him, just as shocked to have received the blow as James was to have given it. James felt sick.  
In a burst of pain and guilt and nausea and old anger all swelling to the surface, James let go of words he'd held back for years: "You're not some noble knight on a mission to defend fair Breaux Bridge from her enemies, Hunter. You're five feet six. You're a Chihuahua, man. You're frickin' small, but you think you're a Pit. It's gotta stop 'cause I can't keep beating up everyone for you."  
"I know," Hunter said. "I know."  
James stood still, seething. What more could he say? You're not a hero. I know. Case closed. Conversation over.  
James reached down and helped Hunter to his feet for the millionth time in sixteen years. This time, he received a punch to the shoulder for his trouble. He was so surprised by it that he stumbled into the street. A car blared its horn at him. James leapt back onto the sidewalk, startled and shaken.  
Hunter smirked. "You know you deserved that, right?"  
The combined impact of the last twenty minutes hit James all at once, so that all he could do was go limp and laugh. "Yeah," He said. "I know."  
Hunter draped his arm around his shoulders and walked him down the street. James wondered what he was going to do with him.


End file.
